MOBISTYLE stories
Curious to see some MOISTYLE experiences? On this page we're sharing some MOBISTYLE stories with you!
MOBISTYLE in the Slovenian demonstration case
MOBISTYLE in the Italian demonstration case
In Italy, we're demonstrating MOBISTYLE in a hotel. Today we're sharing a story with you of a MOBISTYLE guest:
"My MOBISTYLE experience has begun in Turin (Northern Italy), in the beautiful frame of the Orologio Living Apartment hotel, where I booked a room for my business trip.
I have learned about the European MOBISTYLE project as soon as I arrived in the hotel. The receptionist has explained to me that this project aims at reducing energy consumption, increasing the indoor environmental quality and, most interesting of all, improving the guest health. The receptionist offered me the chance to stay in one of the MOBISTYLE rooms and I accepted straight away! My room was equipped with some devices able to provide personalized information on how my daily actions affect the indoor environment, the energy use and my health.
Once in the room, the hotel staff sent me an e-mail on how to register and start using the MOBISTYLE solutions. I logged-in and found the mobile App and the dashboard user-friendly, but then I left the room quickly to go to some business meetings. Only in the evening, after a full and busy day, while I was relaxing on the sofa, I received a first MOBISTYLE message saying: Computer: pay attention to the stand-by mode! If we assume that the PC is running for about 8 hours a day, it stays 16 hours in stand-by mode. In 24 hours, a pc in this mode consumes about 300 Wh. In a year, this energy waste would be around 120 kWh, equal to the annual consumption of a dishwasher (180 washing cycles). Honestly, I am not very familiar with the meaning of Wh and kWh, but the reference to the 180 washing cycles made me quickly to understand that I was wasting a lot of energy! I had a look at the room and saw my laptop on standby, as I always do, and I immediately switched it off!
The next day, I got the chance to learn something new and very interesting about the dishwasher. I have read, this message on the App: is it necessary to rinse the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher? False!!! Detergents need dirt to clean and, if the dishes are already clean, soap enzymes work worse. Not to mention that the operation requires unnecessary waste of water. To remove food residues, it is better to use a damp sponge or paper towels already used during the meal (which would however be thrown away). I remember that day, while I was talking with my husband on the phone, I said: "we need to change the way in which we use our dishwasher!". MOBISTYLE suggestions are so precious that I wish I could keep receiving them once at home! MOBISTYLE also notified me that keeping the room temperature too high does not allow me to sleep well. Making me thinking about the possibility of lowering the thermostat temperature at home to prevent that my daughter waking up 4 or 5 times a night!
MOBISTYLE is definitely my lifestyle!"
And the story of a receptionist:
As receptionists, I am very happy to be part of MOBISTYLE project, because it has brought me closer to the issues of energy use and of environmental impacts reduction making them easy to be understood and showing how they are linked to my health. I've always tried my best to have a sustainable lifestyle and I like that MOBISTYLE solutions help me in taking daily concrete actions!
As soon as I was introduced to the MOBISTYLE project, I was really very curious and I downloaded the MOBISTYLE App on my mobile, immediately. I found the App quite intuitive, but it took a while before I could do the right action at the right moment for improving my lifestyle at work. I access to the dashboard regularly, interacting several times a day. I read the notifications and in this way I learn how to recognize the impact of my actions on the indoor environmental quality, on energy consumption and, most importantly, on my health too! Yes, on my personal health! How? For example, when the CO2 concentration is too high inside, MOBISTYLE notifies me to open a window in order to get fresh air and to improve the air quality in the reception. With such a simple action, I have noticed benefits on my health; I feel less tired and my level of attention is higher with less distractions!
Moreover, MOBISTYLE informs me when the air in the reception is too dry. Do you know that dry air can aggravate respiratory diseases and can be easier to catch a cold or a flu?!
The good thing is that what I learn at work I do at home. MOBISTYLE is not just a project, it's a lifestyle! That's why I have decided to make MOBISTYLE tips my own.
Huygen CEO Corné Gilissen about the MOBISTYLE office app
"Huygen Engineers & Consultants is an engineering design and consultancy company with office locations in Utrecht and Sittard-Geleen. Until a year ago, the office in Limburg was in city of Maastricht where for quite some years we were looking for new office location opportunities. An Interesting opportunity arose during discussions with the Brightlands Chemelot Campus Facility management team. We decided to hire an office surface at the new Brightlands Bright Houses which are designed in a 'modular' way so each tenant has certain freedom with their office space design ideas.
Since our company is involved in different EU innovation research projects, we also wanted to have facilities that would allow us testing 'playground', especially with different installation experiments. This way, we had opportunity to implement our innovative Huygen office design ideas with new installations possibilities which would allow us implementation of dynamic indoor environment settings. Before bringing it to our business clients, we wanted to see our own perception with these different indoor conditions.
As both building services consultants and as office users, we are very interested in health, sustainability and productivity in the office. We want to know which are the optimal indoor conditions to ensure well-being and the highest performance (productivity). Through being a 'Guinee pig' ourselves, we can understand in the best possible way the impact of our design scenarios and in this way provide best and 'firsthand advice' to our clients interested in such office design.
So in the office of Huygen we started with dynamic indoor climate applications to see how such conditions affect people's well-being, productivity and as well building's energy performance. We developed and installed the MOBISTYLE Office application The application educates our colleagues as office guests about the indoor conditions in the different meeting rooms as also provides feedback about potential benefits of the dynamic conditions.. The application also takes into account the feedback from users and if needed, we can adjust the installation setpoints based on their (anonymous) feedback. All the information is stored in Huygen DataBuilt, so it allows our engineers to have more in-depth insights not only into installations performance but also occupant's satisfaction with these conditions. And we already have some ideas for the next steps; application improvements!
Sometimes I experienced the effects of these experiments in our office. During a meeting, I experienced a change in room temperature. Sometimes I felt chilly but I did not really mind it. When I noticed a change in temperature, I felt more alert again. It made me more aware especially since I was aware of the objectives of these testings and their benefits. And if you know the reason, that really helps too. You feel motivated to change and improve.
I do think it's important to keep motivating to use the Office app. It should become a habit. With positioning the app on the office wall by the doors, it can easily become a daily practice that when you enter different office rooms, you check the screen to get up to date about the current indoor office conditions and see the additional tips. Additionally, beside knowing why we are doing it, it would be valuable to get more in-depth insights through a report here and there. This is also the recommendation I gave to our researchers. Both as rooms users as building professionals we are interested to see the impact of our actions (e.g. lowering/increasing temperature) over a longer period of time.
I definitely think other companies could benefit from a dynamic indoor climate combined in combination with the MOBISTYLE Office app. Most commonly we apply stable indoor conditions in office spaces. But stable conditions (especially temperature) can lead to high operational building costs. Often this also requires more installations. So for us as a consulting company it is important to continue this research to see long term effects of dynamic indoor climate conditions on both, building energy usage patterns as also our own productivity."